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Newt Gingrich and the press: Secret pals

It’s not unusual for Gingrich to chat with reporters off-the-record after campaign events. | Reuters

The high level of comfort with the press reflects a political career spent with reporters in close quarters, mainly while he served in Congress. He understands the competitive pressures of the business — Gingrich recently joked with a reporter who waited in the rain to ask him a question as he exited his campaign bus that she was being rewarded with an exclusive for her persistence.

Gingrich also appears to make a distinction between individual reporters and the media as a whole and comprehends the insatiable nature of the modern news hole. Even amid the presidential campaign trail demands for message discipline, he holds a press availability nearly every day — a far cry from the front-runner Romney.

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The former speaker is comfortable enough with the small group that travels with him daily that he even has inside jokes with them. He frequently pokes fun at his own staff, often making spokesman R.C. Hammond the subject of his jokes. Gingrich refers to him as “Toby’s assistant,” a reference to Hammond’s dog.

On a few occasions when Hammond has tried to shout questions during press conference, Gingrich has jokingly chastised him.

“You’re not the press,” he says, before returning to questions from reporters.

Hammond attributes the stark difference between the tongue-lashings Gingrich delivers at debates and the candidate’s relatively warm relationship with the traveling press — mainly embed reporters — to the way they interact with the campaign.

“The traveling press corps spends a lot of time listening over and over and over and over again to the candidate which allows for more informed conversation with the candidate,” Hammond said.

Gingrich acknowledged to ABC News in December that he appreciates the crew that chronicles his every move and follows the same grueling schedule.

“I actually identify with the people who are the embeds,” Gingrich said. “Also, we have really nice people. I mean all the guys who are hanging out with me are nice. I don’t know about the other campaigns.”

“I’ve just been struck with the good humor of the group,” Gingrich told ABC.

Gingrich knows his traveling band of reporters well enough to call on them by name. On Tuesday, he went so far as to begin a press conference with an unusual message: With more than 30 reporters and cameras pointed in his direction, he wished NBC embed reporter Alex Moe a happy birthday.

That wasn’t the end of it. Later that evening, as about 25 reporters and staffers dined in Columbia to mark Moe’s birthday, there was a late arrival — Gingrich, ambling into the back dining room with a glass of wine in his hand.

“I wanted to see the working press,” he joked, drawing laughter from the room.

The writer commits the fundamental attribution error by implying that because Gingrich sometimes calls the [biased, left-wing]media on their s**t (ie. when they deserve it) that we are supposed to assume that he has a problem with ***all*** media. This doesn't even make sense.

Gingrich is clearly a likeable, congenial and friendly guy. OF COURSE he has good relationships with the reporters who are fair to him. The ones who are out to get him, he takes to task. Doing so is the only way Republicans can get a fair shake. Anyone who hasn't had their head in the sand knows that the media's obsequiousness to Obama is the main reason he got elected. Gingrich is just being presidential by not letting reporters who are in the tank for Obama go unchallenged.

The bitterness comes from the constant lack of objective journalism by the elite press, such as ABC, NBC and CBS. Their "reporting" screams editorial. Readers and listeners prefer to draw their own conclusions based on the facts. Just give us the facts, Jack.

REALLY? If that is true then i would say with friends like that who needs enemies??! I would hope that Newt would not be that naive??..... Only politico would come up with such an article...of course politico does left wing bias nut job reporting too.

Let's face it, the radical right-wing extremists would very much like to take away Freedom of the Press as guaranteed by our Constitution and have a strictly right-wing controlled press that ONLY reports favorable stories on right-wing extremist candidates - kind of have a FOX News Pravda.

BRAVO CNN and ABC for reporting on the moral depravities and hypocrisies of the "family values" candidate Newt Gingrich!!

John King could not NOT ask the question. Everyone knows this, especially NEWT. It was a GIFT.... right off the bat Newt came out swinging and knocked it out of the park. It set the tone for the entire night for Gingrich. I believe Newt is probably the smartest guy to run for the W.H. in decades. I am highly suspicious of the media after McCain was foisted on us 5 yrs ago. Could it be that even the press realized obama is a dangerous, deluded, stupid man? That would be too much to hope for, but they all can't be so stupid as to think obama is digging us out, can they?

One thing is for sure. THe idea that Romney has a lock on the nomination goes right out the window whenever he and Newt appear together in an open forum. It may not even be settled before the convention, although I think that is highly unlikely

@Whatihear I hope someone pays you to spew forth your venom on here everyday. I would hate to think you were such an empty shell as to sit here hour after hour spitting venom for nothing. Have a beer and relax pal ;))

The bitterness comes from the constant lack of objective journalism by the elite press, such as ABC, NBC and CBS. Their "reporting" screams editorial. Readers and listeners prefer to draw their own conclusions based on the facts. Just give us the facts, Jack.

I completely agree with this. It would seem that in the last 10 years or so, "journalists" have been more interested in trying to create news instead of reporting the news. Whatever happened to the good old shoe-leather journalists?